11.2 Route 29 Revisited

By coincidence, I continued my exploration of Virginia on the Monday after Halloween by driving down Route 29 almost from the Potomac River to Danville, just 3 miles north of the Virginia/North Carolina border.

Technically, I wasn’t near the fall line, which south of DC runs 50 to 100 miles east of 29, roughly parallel with US 95. Route 29 takes a more southwesterly track. Between DC and Charlottesville, the route is wide open, with gently rolling hills and farms (many now turned into commercial and residential developments) on both sides. The peakettes (“peaks” seems too grandiose) of the Blue Ridge are visible ten or fifteen miles to the west. The trees had noticeably more leaves than around DC.

Route 29 does have a water connection. South of Charlottesville, Route 29 is like a roller coaster, going up and down between follows the old Indian trails that paralleled the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can see from a topo map that Route 29 practically “spoons” the eastern folds of the Blue Ridge highland. At several points, it crosses rivers where the water flows out of the highland into the still hilly but less steep Piedmont region. At these crossings, the power of the water led to the development of towns, just as the need to shift goods from one form of transportation to another led to the development of towns along the fall line. The biggest of those towns is Lynchburg, the home of Jerry Fallwell and Liberty University.

During my time in Danville, I did some quick research on my phone. It turns out Danville was a Southern rail center in the Civil War, and the Danville & Richmond Railroad was the key supply line for the Confederate capital throughout the war. For a few days after the Union’s capture of Richmond and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Danville was the last capital of the Confederacy. Now, it is a down on its luck former mill town with a lot of retirees from “up north.”

For me, all of this matters less than the fact that the D&R was the “Danville train” in the classic Band song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” And that the “Stoneman” whose cavalry is bemoaned in the song was a real Union general who later became governor of California. So Levon Helm’s lyrics were rooted in history. My hat’s off to him for creating a masterpiece.